Full Fat Force!

After a slightly disappointing 2013 season, one man who has a lot to prove this year is former Leaders and Midland Hillclimb Champion Will Hall.

Having chosen to plough his own furrow with a unique car and engine, the Midlander is determined to make the combination work. Over the winter the Force WH chassis and the Nissan V6 motor have seen serious attention.

Force Racing Cars boss Ian Dayson, along with team consultant 1989 BHC winner Ray Rowan, have gone through the car with a fine-tooth comb following an intensive testing program at the back end of last year. The most obvious mod for the new season is in the aero department, the rear wing having been canted forward presumably in the hunt for rear downforce. Much has been going on under the skin as well, including a move to off-board starting which means that the weight of the cleverly packaged, in-bellhousing starter motor has been saved.

Will Hall and Ian Dayson fettle the Force WH at Prescott in April.

The unique to the hills 3.5 litre Nissan V6 power plant has come in for a lot of attention as well, with a stack of work having been carried out by Paul Knapton of Xtec Engineering. Now featuring methanol fuelling, a new crank, titanium con rods and new pistons, as well as a stack of detail work, the engine now sounds quite different to before, and Will reports that it is more difficult to drive with a shorter throttle pedal travel, but hopefully the extra grunt will more than make up for that!

As well as the mods revealed at Prescott back in April, the developments have continued at a rapid pace. The latest tweak was revealed at the Barbon/Harewood weekend, and whilst not being immediately obvious, becomes very clear once the V6 has been fired up.

The Nissan V6′s exhausts now exit into the floor to form a blown diffuser.

Ian Dayson has converted the exhaust system, which previous exited through the sidepods, to feed through the floor of the car into the venturi tunnels to form a hot blown diffuser. The titanium exhaust system is connected to the carbon fibre floor by flanges on the end of the tail pipes and requires nothing more than a couple of bits of heat resistant matting to insulate the tunnel.

Exhausts exit through the central tunnel on each side of the aerodynamic floor.

How much downforce the driven tunnels are now producing is unknown, but it is certainly a fascinating approach and the new system produces a phenomenal noise. Indeed, at the events entered so far, the blown system has diverted the Environmental Scrutineers attention away from Wallace Menzies for once!

Hopefully these mods will allow Hall to fight for podium placings and wins this year, the team deserve this as a reward for continuing to develop a fascinating alternative concept on the hills.